Hi, I scored badly on the ap literature exam: score (2) And I think I should delete it. I took the class as a sophomore and it was very difficult. My hope is to go to Brown U so I don’t want this to effect me in college admissions. Should I keep it or cancel it?
You don’t have to send when applying to college. So, move on and carry on
Shouldn’t I cancel it anyway? Can’t colleges look at any of my ap exam scores whether I send them or not?
You get to choose which scores to send and that’s the only way colleges can see those scores. On your high school transcript, they will notice that you took AP classes, so if you don’t have an AP exam score to match, then they might raise an eyebrow and wonder if you took the exam or just scored really low on the exam and didn’t choose to report it.
What other AP classes you took?
@NASA2014 I got to a small town school with 250 students so the only ap class I took was ap lit. IAp bio was an option that I wanted to take but they were in the same period. Now that I want to major in an environmental science major I wish I did that instead. Next year as a Junior I’m taking APUSH and Ap Lang.
Can you still take AP biology?
Yes, I could take it next year instead of AP language but I thought it would be too much science to take ApBio 3 period and 4th-period physics which is required next year. @NASA2014
FWIW, the median score out of all test takers for AP Lit is a 2. It is an incredibly hard subject for the average student to be good at, so don’t feel too bad about it.
To be accurate, the median is not a 2, unless one decides to truncate, in which case, one should call a 3.96 GPA a 3. 
The median for 2018 is 2.57. The mode, however, is a 2.
https://apscore.collegeboard.org/scores/about-ap-scores/score-distributions//
Fret not…colleges are much more concerned about your grades in those classes as opposed to the AP tests.
Why is that?
- Doing well in a class shows you can learn over the year and work hard over a period of time. That is what they want in college.
- Not all HS have many APs.
- Many people take AP tests senior year which is too late for admissions
For example, Stanford says:
Students currently enrolled in AP courses are not required to submit AP scores as part of our admission process. AP scores that are reported are acknowledged but rarely play a significant role in the evaluation of an application. Grades earned over the course of a term, or a year, and evaluations from instructors who can comment on classroom engagement provide us with the most detailed insight into a student’s readiness for the academic rigors of Stanford.
http://admission.stanford.edu/basics/selection/prepare.html
Where does this leave you?
- It tells you that you cannot place out of those classes in college…you will need to take them in college like many many other people do.
- Do not self-report your score for that class